“Sydney, I’m sorry,” said Jill. “What can I do to fix this?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Except to stay away from Lia.” I felt ill. “I’ll take care of this.” I really didn’t know how, though. I could only pray no one noticed the picture.

“I’ll do whatever you need if you think of something. I—oh.” Her eyes lifted to something behind me. “Maybe we should talk later.”

I glanced back. Trey was walking toward us. Another problem to deal with.

“Probably a good idea,” I said. Jill’s heartache and publicity would have to go on the back burner. She left as Trey came to stand beside me.

“Melbourne,” he said, attempting one of his old smiles. It faltered a little.

“I didn’t know you were still around,” I said. “I thought you’d left with the others.” The Warriors had scattered to the wind. Trey had said before that they traveled for their “hunts,” and Master Angeletti had also mentioned gathering from various places of the country. Presumably, they had all returned to where they’d come from. I’d thought Trey would simply disappear as well.

“Nope,” he said. “This is where I go to school, where my dad wants me to stay. Besides, the other Warriors never had a permanent base here in Palm Springs. They’ll move on to wherever…”

He couldn’t finish, so I did. “Wherever you get a tip-off about monsters you can brutally execute?”

“It wasn’t like that,” he said. “We thought she was one of the Strigoi. We still do.”

I scrutinized his face, this guy I’d thought was my friend. I was pretty sure he still was. “Not you. That’s why you threw the fight.”

“I didn’t,” he protested.

“You did. I saw you hesitate when you could have taken out Chris. You didn’t want to win. You didn’t want to kill Sonya because you weren’t sure she really was Strigoi.”

He didn’t deny it. “I still think they should all be destroyed.”

“So do I.” I reconsidered. “Well, unless there’s a way to save them all, but that’s unclear.” Despite how much I’d said while advocating for Sonya, I wasn’t quite comfortable letting him on the secrets and experiments. “If the Warriors travel around, what’ll happen the next time they’re in this area? Or even L.A.? Will you join them again? Will you travel to the next hunt?”

“No.” The answer was hard. Blunt, even.

Hope surged in me. “You’ve decided to split off from them?”

The emotions on Trey’s face were hard to read, but they didn’t look like happy ones. “No. They decided to cut us off—me and my dad. We’ve been outcast.”

I stared for a few moments, at a loss for words. I didn’t like the Warriors or Trey’s involvement, but this wasn’t quite what I’d been trying to achieve. “Because of me?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Indirectly, I guess. They don’t blame you personally or even the Alchemists. Hell, they still want to team up with the Alchemists. They figure you just behaved in your typically misguided way. But me? I’m the one who pushed to let you in, who swore everything would be fine. So, they blame me for the lapse of judgment and fallout that came from it. Others are taking the blame too—the council for agreeing, security for not stopping the raid—but that doesn’t make me feel better. Dad and I were the only ones exiled.”